2017年7月3日月曜日

EDU-JPN:Moritomo Gakuen Scandal Part 2: The latest developments

Education in Japan (Natalie Collor)

One major development in the Moritomo Gakuen scandal is the loss of official documents. At the beginning of this month, it was revealed that the written documents and digital data from official land purchasing negotiations between Moritomo Gakuen and the government had been destroyed by the Ministry of Finance. Because of this event, the ministry had to update its information systems by the 2nd of this month.

Therefore, NEC, the company entrusted with the ministry’s data and documents has begun its efforts to retrieve them. One worry is that without these documents, getting to the truth of this scandal will become nearly impossible. The Ministry of Finance is requesting that NEC retrieve physical data by July 31st of this year. On the other hand, the opposition party worries that, in its honest efforts to bring back the original data for the sake of this investigation, the public will think they are concealing information and develop a negative view. Therefore, one representative, Mr. Takashi Takai, was hoping for a freeze on the data retrieval, but the Ministry of Finance did not grant his request.

It has also become a court order for Moritomo Gakuen employee computer data to be restored on the belief that today’s technology is so advanced that even if all the data was once deleted, there are ways to retrieve it. The attorney involved in this case believes there is certainly a way to retrieve the data and that this data from the official negotiations is the key to understanding what really happened between Moritomo Gakuen and the government.

Both the communist and democratic parties want to protect the transparency of this issue, so they jointly submitted a revised record of their national assets to the House of Councilors. Since news of this scandal has come to light, more than four months have passed. However, an accurate explanation of what truly happened and an appropriate resolution for the parties involved are likely still months away.